Like for example a project log where you are restoring some old car, solving problems and sourcing parts.
In a forum it is cleanly self contained. On a subreddit it would be a bunch of scattered posts you would have to take the care to link to.
The old PHPBB software (or whatever it was called) was much nicer. You could have a thread about restoring your old car, and there might be 50 pages, in order, that someone could look through if they wanted to or just skip to the end so they can see what's currently being discussed. They can reference a comment on page 42 and it will always be on page 42.
Reddit follows this infinite scroll idea, that everyone now seems to follow, that I absolutely hate. You can search for a particular topic but you can't see what topics were around it. But I guess it encourages quick one-off posts which increases engagement or whatever.
Discussions would last days on the old phpBB boards. There wasn't that same pressure to spend all day on the same website. You'd make your post and visit every few days. This encouraged effort and reflection.
With reddit and other modern platforms, if it doesn't happen in the same 12 hours then it's old news.
Even with the relatively fast-moving ones you could still check in later and just quote a previous entry. Discussions tended to be deeper because of the format, less prone to quick little flurries of discussions that petered out once they were downvoted or not upvoted. Speaking of which, I don't remember any kind of upvoting of comments. The users on the board might show special icons if they were a mod and it usually gave an idea of how long they had been there or how active they had been. Discussions were expected to take a while, which encouraged more in-depth replies.
Not to mention the customisation and level of commitment that went into your forum persona. There were signatures, user bars, and yes ranks that rewarded commitment with the number of posts rather than magical internet points. Compare that with the sparse stylings of reddit, this site, or social media profiles.
There were certainly conflicts and power-tripping moderators on those boards, but on balance I don't think the downsides outweighed the upsides. If anything, the conflict just made the sense of community more real. Being a regular carried with it a sense of obligation.
I have revisited the surviving boards from my past, most are limping on, but none of the regulars I remembered were to be found.
I still hold a vague hope that the old threaded bulletin boards might be revived some day.
Like for example a project log where you are restoring some old car, solving problems and sourcing parts. In a forum it is cleanly self contained. On a subreddit it would be a bunch of scattered posts you would have to take the care to link to.